As a student at art school no one warns you that half your career will be spent filling out application forms, nor do they teach you how to do it. I would have appreciated the warning. I would have liked to know that the bureaucratic cruelty of the arts council would lead to raging and tears. I would have liked to know that the effort spent is normal and a part of being an artist. I would have liked to know that sometimes a yes comes through that changes your life and fills you with joy.
I know all this now. I have learnt it through years of painful and joyous experience.
It would have been nice to know from the start.
A student once asked me what I thought one needed most to be become a successful artist. The examples they gave included skill, luck, and connections. While I think all of these are important my answer was something a little different: bull headed stubbornness. You need to be so stubborn that you will keep going no matter what.
Over the last week I have been filling out applications to residencies, arts funding, and part time jobs. Some of these are incredibly exciting and I desperately want them, others are great for what they are. Arts funding is a wonderful thing, but it is rare that it pays a wage alongside the money to create art. The Seagrass Walk was the first time in my life that has happened. The applications I am currently working on do not repeat this wonderful experience.
Some of the part time jobs I’m applying are the best I have seen, which is good because I hate applying for jobs. I have a job. One I am incredibly well qualified for. One I have years of experience in. One I am totally dedicated to. I am an artist, that is my job. And yet, to survive I have had to do so many other jobs over the years. Some I have adored and gotten a huge amount from. Some I have hated but at least they paid. All of them took time away from making art.
Being an artist is one big catch 22. Without a job I have time but no money. With a job I have money but little time. With funding I can make work but have nothing left to live on. Without it I can’t even make work. Most residencies, even the free ones, are unpaid. Most competitions require money to enter them. Application forms take hours, days, even months, and most often result in a simmering hatred of my email inbox as the barer of bad news.
People don’t talk about the reality of money as an artist. The world clings onto the romanticised notion of the starving artist who can somehow afford a loft apartment with huge windows and an endless supply of materials. It doesn’t work like that. We need money, just like everyone else. It’s how the world is set up to pay us for our job that causes problems and requires bull headed stubbornness. I wish it was different.
I dream of my art as a self-sustaining economy that pays me to live.
I dream of my photographs featuring in my travel books and photo books.
I dream of seeing my name next to photo essays and articles in magazines.
I dream of residencies that allow me to make work about the climate crisis.
I dream of exhibitions and installations.
I dream of more moments like the one I had today when the gorgeous third volume of aetla arrived through the post featuring my work.
I want to make art, and have it sustain a life spent making more art. This doesn’t seem like it should be too much to ask.
I am willing to fight to earn this dream, willing to strive for it. I am stubborn enough to keep going through all the applications. I am stubborn enough to believe that this Substack will grow to help support me, that The Seagrass Walk will lead somewhere else wonderful, that I will have books published and see my photos featured in travel stories, that my sculptures will be installed in galleries and sculpture parks. I am stubborn enough to keep dreaming.
But it would be nice if it was a little easier to get there, if the dream could come true a little faster, if I didn’t have to keep fighting to remain hopeful, if one success led more easily to another. It would be nice to spend a little less time filling out application forms and a little more making art or building my van. I know that the only way for that to happen is to keep trying, to keep climbing no matter how hard the path is to see. And so, I will keep working. Which means for now I will sign off and leave you so that I can fill out my next job application. Thank you for being with me, it helps me remain stubborn.